The rise of the Nazi Party 1919

The rise of the Nazi Party 1919-1929

Origins of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party)
Before it was named the NSDAP the National Socialist German Workers Party had previously been named the Deutsche Arbeiterpuntei (German Workers Party) or DAP. Its main commitments were Nationalism meaning to identify or become extremely attached to your nation. Anti-Semitism meaning the hatred of Jews and the belief that the Aryan was the master race. And finally it strongly rejected capitalism meaning the ownership of private property or profit. These guidelines that the DAP lived by were very much admired by Hitler, he even quoted in one of his later speeches "We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
However the DAP founded in 1919 by Anton Drexler (1884-1942) was not very politically strong at the time. It was actually only a debating party with no organisation, structure or headquarters. Hitler himself was only the 55th member when he joined in 1919. But due to Hitler’s extreme charisma and forward thinking he was almost immediately named the parties Propaganda Chief by Drexler. And by February of 1920 Hitler sat down with Drexler and drew up the 25 points of the party. The main ideas of the 25 point programme were to enforce industrialisation to improve the German economy, develop a strong belief in anti-Semitism, and bring all big industry under state control so everyone could share in the wealth and to evoke strong support of nationalism. Hitler had always been hostile to the ideas of socialism, especially those that involved racial and gender equality. However socialism was a popular political philosophy after WW1, reflected in the growth of the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) which was the largest political party in Germany at the time. Therefore he redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood." And those who were not would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.
In February 1920, the NSDAP published its first programme which became known as the "Twenty-Five Points." In the programme the party refused to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and demanded the reunification of all German people. To reinforce their ideas on nationalism, equal rights were only to be given to German citizens. "Foreigners" and "aliens" would be denied these rights.
Hitler had joined the party due to orders from his superior officers, because the use of the term “workers” in the DAP had drawn attention to the German Army who were looking to root out any potential sources of Marxism.
However Hitler had become the main driving force of the Party by 1921 and was far overstepping his role as propaganda chief, such as organising armed squads named the SA (Sturmabteilung) led by Ernst Rohm a fellow soldier to protect party meetings with the added bonus of scaring their opponents. He was the mastermind behind the Nazi uniform which helped give the party a better image/identity. Hitler had made the party very popular locally and had even managed to help its membership rise to 3,300.
The early years of the party represent key examples of Hitler’s political maneuverabilityand his skills as a public speaker which eventually led him to becoming the leader of Germany in the coming years. Because evidence suggests that the DAP would have never risen to its current stage without Hitler’s influential political skills.
However Drexler the current party leader at the time was not pleased with Hitler’s rising popularity as he felt that it threatened his role as leader. So himself along with other leading members took steps to undermine his authority, but Hitler sensed this and cunningly offered to resign knowing full well that the Party would fall into anarchy if he did so. After his resignation the was a power struggle amongst the party leaders and Drexler wo was ashamed of his actions then resigned which led to Hitler being welcomed back and named the new party chairman (Führer).
Nazi Ideology
The key elements of Nazi ideology can be separated into:
National Socialist Programme – For example the 25 point programme devised by Hitler and Drexler which he had to eventually tone down slightly to attract the support of big Business. Lebensraum - the need for 'living space' for the German nation to expand.
A strong Germany - the Treaty of Versailles should be abolished and all German-speaking people united in one country.
Führer - the idea that there should be a single leader with complete power rather than a democracy.
Social Darwinism - the idea that the Aryan race was superior and Jews were 'subhuman'.
Autarky - the idea that Germany should be economically self-sufficient.
Germany was in danger - from Communists and Jews, who had to be destroyed.
Socialist - e.g. farmers should be given their land; pensions should improve; and public industries such as electricity and water should be owned by the state.
Nationalist - all German-speaking people should be united in one country; the Treaty of Versailles should be abolished; and there should be special laws for foreigners.
Racist - Jews should not be German citizens and immigration should be stopped.
Fascist - a strong central government and control of the newspapers.
The Nazis did not appeal to: working men who voted Communist intellectuals such as students and university professors

The Nazis were very closely linked to a strong belief in Fascism shown in one of Hitler’s early propaganda posters.

Part of the Nazis early success was that they provided what at the time appeared to be a legitimate scape goat for the current problems that Weimar faced. This was the Jews and this belief of Anti-Semitism helped to increase the Nazis support from the working classes.

The Putsch Trial and Mein Kampf
The Putsch trial originated from Hitler’s poorly executed Beer Hall Putsch in which Hitler attempted to seize power from the current Weimar government led by President Ebert and Chancellor Stresemann. The Putsch in 1923 was brought on by the two leader’s decision to end the passive resistance in the Ruhr in order to deal with the hyperinflation crisis of 1923. However the passive resistance was seen by many as an act of rebellion against the admission of war guilt and giving into the terms of the Treaty of Versailles would be seen as treason against the republic by many of the Weimar nationalists (this was something they could not tolerate).
So on the 8th of November 1923 Hitler and his 35,000 strong Nazi Party attempted to overthrow the republic. Which is an example of his reckless mind set at the time because it would have been virtually impossible to attempt such an act with such a limited amount of support because after all at the time, the Nazis were just one of many loud outspoken nationalist parties.
So Hitler and 600 of his SA marched into the Munich Beer hall where the Bavarian President Kahr was having a speech addressing some 3000 business men and influential political leaders. He overthrew the speech and shouted "The national revolution has broken out. The hall is surrounded." He then took Kahr, Lossow and Seisser the leaders of the speech into the back room where he threatened them at gun point to gather their supporters and help them overthrow the government. Hitler’s plan was rash however because it almost entirely relied on getting support from Kahr which he did but only begrudgingly.
On the 9th of November 1923 Hitler marched on Munich with 3000 men and faced only 100 armed police officers. But his plan was to also rally their support to help him overthrow the government. The shootout lasted only one minute in which 18 people died, after which most of the 3000 supporters fled along with Hitler who was arrested two days later and charged with treason.
The trial
Hitler’s treason trial made him a political celebrity overnight. His judges had been chosen by a Nazi supporter and they allowed him to turn the courtroom into a stage for hours of uninterrupted political propaganda. If anything Hitler’s imprisonments actually furthered his political career rather than hinder it. The trial was anything but fair and Hitler instead of being treated as a defendant became his own judge and had the power to interrupt testimonies and even cross examine witnesses. This would be an example of the Nazi parties rising support in the Bavarian region of Germany.
Hitler admitted wanting to overthrow the government and even gave all of his reasons for it, portraying himself as a German patriot and he claimed that he could not be tried as a criminal because he was mounting a revolution against the revolution of the November Criminals of 1918. "I alone bear the responsibility. But I am not a criminal because of that. If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the revolution. There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918."
Hitler’s trial lasted 24 days and in each day he was seen to be gaining more and more support for his cause. National newspapers even began quoting him at length by the end of the trial Hitler was gaining a sense of the national impact he was having. The courts verdict rendered Hitler guilty of treason and the sentence was five years eligible for parole in 6 months. The reason the sentence was so minimal was because the judges had been so swayed by Hitler’s words that the presiding judge had to persuade them to find him guilty at all. But despite this Hitler was still sentenced but with the promise of very early parole.
The pampering didn’t even end when he was in prison. On April 1st 1924 Hitler was taken to the old fortress at Landsberg and given a large private cell with a view and even had his own private secretary. And it was in this isolated state that Hitler proceeded to write down his opinion and views in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
Mein Kampf
Oddly enough despite popular belief Hitler did not actually sit down with pen and paper and write Mein Kampf, but actually just dictated it to his secretary Rudolf Hess as he paced up and down his cell.
In the book Hitler separated the Human race into several sub species based on; physical appearance, hair colour and race. In this he decides the master race to be the physically fit blue eyed, blonde haired Germanic man (Aryan). It is clear throughout his book that Hitler in no way believes in any form of equality between races and nationalities and he assigns the Jews as the lowest possible form of human or sub human (despite them being a religion not a race). He then goes on to say that they are the soul conspirator against the rise of the Aryan race to power and that if they had their way they would seek nothing but world domination.
Overall Hitler’s Mein Kampf demonstrates his extreme belief in anti-Semitism which helped in his fear mongering of the German people when he finally came to power, however originally it did not receive that much popularity when it was first released due to the very extreme nature of its ideology.
Hitler Re Asserts his authority
During Hitler’s imprisonment Gregor Strasser (1892-1934) took power of the Nazi Party and became its main figure head and leader. But Hitler soon became jealous of Strassers power when he was released from prison. He saw Strasser as a superior because:
Highly educated (which Hitler was not)
Had also served in the trenches in WW1 and was a respected war hero
After which he became a successful and influential businessman
He also wanted to adopt the a form of German Socialism (Anti Capitalism)
It was in Hitler’s best interests to regain power of the party as soon as possible because without his authoritarian style of leadership the party was falling into anarchy with political divisions within different areas of the party. His main plan was to dissolve the internal separation and re unite all of the members. Although it took him some time he did finally manage to fully regain his power in 1926 at the Bamberg Conference, attended by several of the top leaders of the NSDAP. The northern side of the party was represented by Gregor Strasser – considered at the time as a rival to Hitler for the future leadership of the party – while the south was best represented by Gottfried Feder. Hitler chose at Sunday February 14th, for the meeting in the hope that those from the north of Germany would find it more difficult to get to Bamberg than those in the south. In this sense, Hitler was making it clear where his loyalties lay. In his speech Hitler tainted those who stood behind Strasser and accused them of being a Communist. The strong loathing of communism appeared to provide some unity amongst the party and most that stood behind Strasser decided to fall behind Hitler. The debate was over and Hitler had won and finally regained his power, howvever he did still promise no change to Strassers anti capitalism policy and appointed him as the Nazi party’s propaganda chief.

After his regain of power Hitler enforced a tighter grip over the NSDAP in the late 1920’s by creating the leadership principle Führerprinzip. This meant that someone who was further down the chain of command had to offer their complete service to those above them. The first layer was the Fuehrer (the leader) – Adolf Hitler. Hitler not only solely governed the Chancellery but he also put himself at the head of the SA. The second layer was made up of the Reich Leaders (Reichsleitung der NSDAP) – men who had been given specific appointments within the party such as the party treasurer. For example, Joseph Goebbels was in charge of propaganda while Hans Frank was in charge of law. Hitler appointed Reich Leaders. Below them came the third layer – the regional inspectors. There were originally nine Landesinspekteurs and each one of them was responsible for four Gaue. Over time the regional inspectors became less and less powerful as the Gauleiters increased their power. The fourth layer – Gauleiters – became very powerful men as they were given a district (Gau) to govern. For administrative reasons, the Nazi Party divided pre-war Germany into 36 districts.

Another example of Hitler’s new authoritarian reign was that party members from 1926 onwards had to always greet each other with the Nazi salute.

Hitler’s new political strategy (Legality)
Whilst incarcerated Hitler realised that violent attempts to seize power would not work. He didn’t have enough support, money or allies along with the fact that although his party had increased in popularity, it was still seen as an extremist’s party and it had no chance of gaining any real power without the support of big business and industry.
So when he was released from prison he began his policy of Legality for the NSDAP. The first step of this was to begin to build a strong electoral status within the Reichstag and gain majority support. Then and only then could the Nazi’s make one final assault for power.

This is a quote from Hitler describing his new political strategy in 1924 “Instead of working to achieve power by armed uprising, we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the Catholic and Communist members. Sooner or later we shall have a majority and after that we shall have Germany.”
One of Hitler’s steps in his plan was to have his SA reassigned. Originally it had been used as a sort of guerrilla warfare unit to scare the party’s opponents and to help in Putsches. But Hitler instead used his SA to undermine the Weimar republic by attacking communist paramilitary groups to make it seem as though it was up to the Nazis to clean up problems that the Weimar Republic were not capable of dealing with.
The Nazis electoral breakthrough was mainly due to a mass insecurity and fear in 1929 that many right wing extremists could exploit. Weimar was in decline and there was a huge middle class fear of communism which the Nazis promised to destroy along with the creation of a National community. But all was aided along with Hitler’s key strength as a public figure and political speaker. Also the increased organisation of the Nazi party helped them in covering wider areas of issues.
Key Characters
Gregor Strasser -

Adolf Hitler -

Conclusion
How much of a threat did the Nazis pose in 1929?
The Nazi’s new election strategy did help but did not bring about immediate success. By 1928 the Nazis had only won 3% of the vote in the Reichstag and were not overly popular towards the middle classes. But from 1923 -29 the party membership had doubled from 50,000 to 100,000. The increase was mainly due to Hitler’s political skills but another contributing factor was the Wall Street crash of 1929 which lead to entire world’s economy to collapse and increased pressure on countries to revert to communism, which the majority of Germany’s middle class did not want and that is probably why the Nazi vote increased in 1929 due to their strong stance against communism. But it must be remembered that although the Nazi party was getting stronger they did not in fact hold a majority until 1932 and most still viewed Hitler as an extremist. So overall the Nazi party was hovering on the edge of mainstream politics in 1929 but its failure to receive a majority and its relatively small membership in comparison to the rest of the Reichstag meant that at the time it really was not much of a threat. It was only in later years that the Nazis became a true threat for the rest of Germany.